You should continue to be, because these statistics show such a pipeline is the best way to transport fuels

The administration appears unwavering in its decision to block construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would bring oil from Canada, our closest trading partner, to American refineries in the Gulf of Mexico.

The relative safety of pipelines vis-à-vis road and rail to transport oil and gas is a topic of preeminent importance. Data published by the U.S. Department of Transportation clearly show that pipelines have lower injury and fatality rates than road and rail, in addition to enjoying a substantial cost advantage.

These findings have substantial relevance for America's energy future. Petroleum production in North America (Mexico, Canada, and the United States) is now over 16 million barrels a day, according to the Energy Information Agency, and could climb to 27 million barrels a day by 2020. Natural gas production in Canada and the United States could rise by a third over the same period, climbing to 22 billion cubic feet per day.

This oil and gas will have to travel to where it is needed. Whether it is produced in Canada, Alaska, North Dakota, or the Gulf of Mexico, it will be used all over the country, especially since new environmental regulations are resulting in the rapid closures of coal-fired power plants. Large fleets of buses and trucks are switching to natural gas, General Motors and Chrysler are making dual-fuel pickup trucks, and newspapers are speculating about the timing of natural gas passenger vehicles for the American market.

The obvious solution is pipelines, which result in fewer fatalities, injuries, and environmental damage than road and rail. Already almost 500,000 miles of interstate pipeline crisscross America, carrying crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas. The network of pipelines has a remarkable safety record. Americans are more likely to get struck by lightning than to get killed in a pipeline accident.

America has 175,000 miles of onshore and offshore petroleum pipeline and 321,000 miles of natural gas transmission and gathering pipeline. In addition, over 2 million miles of natural gas distribution pipeline send natural gas to businesses and consumers. This is expected to increase as America shifts to natural gas to take advantage of low prices that are expected to last into the foreseeable future.

Pipeline transportation of oil and gas is safer than transportation by road and rail. Pipelines are the primary mode of transportation for crude oil, petroleum products, and natural gas. Approximately 71 percent of crude oil and petroleum products are shipped by pipeline on a ton-mile basis. Tanker and barge traffic accounts for approximately 22 percent of oil shipments. Trucking accounts for 4 percent of shipments, and rail for the remaining 3 percent. Essentially all dry natural gas is shipped by pipeline to end users.

If safety and environmental damages in the transportation of oil and gas were proportionate to the volume of shipments, one would expect that the vast majority of damages to occur on pipelines. But the opposite is true: the majority of incidents occur on road and rail.

Data on pipeline safety are available from the United States Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration Office of Pipeline Safety (PHMSA). Operators report to PHMSA any incident that crosses a certain safety threshold. These reports enable the public to calculate the safety of pipelines in comparison to road and rail.

The Transportation Department has compared the incident, injury, and fatality rates for oil and gas pipelines with transportation by road and rail for the period 2005 through 2009. Road and rail have higher rates of serious incidents, injuries, and fatalities than pipelines, even though more road and rail incidents go unreported.

Rail had the highest rate of incidents, with 651 per billion ton miles per year. This was followed by road, with 20 per billion ton miles per year. Natural gas transmission came next, with 0.89 per billion ton miles. Oil products were the safest, with 0.61 serious incidents per billion ton miles.

With respect to pipeline systems, natural gas transmission lines had the lowest average fatality rate for operator personnel and the general public between 2005 and 2009, with a rate of one person killed per year. This was followed by oil and rail, with an average of 2.4 people per year. The highest is road, with an average of 10.2 people a year.

To draw another comparison, according to the National Weather Service there was an average of 39 reported deaths annually caused by lightning from 2001 through 2010. From 1992 to 2011 fatalities related to pipeline incidents were about 20 per year. An individual had about twice the chance of getting killed by lightning as being killed in a pipeline incident.

Injury rates, defined as numbers of people hospitalized, show a similar pattern. On average, annual injuries for 2005 through 2009 were lowest for oil, at 4 people per year, and natural gas, at 6.2 people per year. The rate was highest for rail, at 25.6 people per year; although this number was heavily biased by the 2005 observation. Road accidents were 21.8 people per year, on average.

Some claim that pipelines carrying Canadian oil sands crude, known as diluted bitumen, have more internal corrosion, and are subject to more incidents. However, PHMSA data show no incidents of oil releases from corrosion from Canadian diluted bitumen between 2002 and 2010. Oil sands crude has been transported in American pipelines for the past decade.

Pipeline safety matters because America continues to ramp up production of oil and natural gas. We need better pipelines to get oil from North Dakota to the refineries in the Gulf, and natural gas from the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania (and New York, should the State allow production to move forward) and the Utica Shale in Ohio to the rest of the country.

In the next few years, the administration may allow more states to explore for oil offshore. In addition, Congress might vote to give coastal areas a share of oil drilling revenue, providing a powerful incentive for more drilling. Congress could also form a liability risk pool to allow independents to expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. In order for these resources to get where they are needed, we need more pipelines-the safest way to move fuel.

Read the warnings of CARE favorite Dreissen and Duggan Flanakin

"Sustainable justice" = redistribution of scarcity

Presidential candidate Barack Obama promised that his Administration would "fundamentally transform the United States of America." He gave a clue to exactly what he had in mind when he told now-congressional candidate Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher: "When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."

Not necessarily – especially when activists, regulators, politicians and ruling elites do all they can to ensure there is less and less wealth to spread around.

Just this week, the Civil Society Reflection Group on Global Development Perspectives released a new report to the United Nations Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development. The executive summary of No Future Without Justice begins with the heading, "The World Is in Need of Fundamental Change." The document then offers "solutions," which include "universal fiscal equalization" and a "massive and absolute decoupling of well-being from resource extraction and consumption."

The 18-member Group includes no Americans – but condemns the US and other governments for their dedication to economic growth, rather than wealth redistribution, and demands that governments play a key role in promoting "sustainability" and welfare. They insist that all governments provide universal access to public health care, guaranteed state allowances for every child, guaranteed state support for the unemployed and underemployed, and basic universal pensions and universal social security.

It is, in short, the total nanny state – but with little or no resource extraction or economic growth to support it. In other words, it guarantees sustained injustice and redistribution of increasing scarcity.

The Group admits that human civilization "will still need some form of growth in large parts of the world, to expand the frontiers of maximum available resources for poor countries." However, the massive investments needed to shift to a totally renewable energy and resource-based economy will require "massive de-growth (shrinkage) of products, sectors and activities that do not pass the sustainability test" – as devised by them, affiliated organizations and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Key financial support for the push toward "sustainability" includes a "greener" and "more progressive" tax system featuring a financial transaction tax, abolition of subsidies for all but renewable energy, cutting military spending while dramatically increasing "stimulus" spending, a compensation scheme to pay off "climate debts" to poor countries supposedly impacted by hydrocarbon-driven climate change, a new regulatory framework for financial markets, a financial product safety commission, and still more regulations for hedge funds and private equity funds. The Group also demands public control of financial rating agencies and a government takeover of international accounting standards.

To ensure that "sustainable development" permeates every aspect of society, the Group proposes a new "Sherpa" for Sustainability (with cabinet rank), a parliamentary committee on policy coherence for sustainability, a UN Sustainability Council, a Universal Periodic Review on Sustainability, and an Ombudsman for Intergenerational Justice and Future Generations. It also proposes an International Panel on Sustainability that builds on the "success" of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Of course, guiding all this would be the world’s premiere political body and bastion of freedom, fairness, democracy and human rights – the UN General Assembly.

To guide this "fundamental" shift toward the sustainability paradigm, the Group laid down eight principles – the key being the "precautionary principle," which forbids any activity that might involve risk or "do harm." Its own sustainability prescriptions are, of course, exempted from any reviews under the precautionary principle.

The objective, they state, is to build economies that drastically limit carbon emissions, energy consumption, primary resource extraction, waste generation, and air and water pollution. Society must also stop the asserted and computer-modeled loss of species and ruination of ecosystems.
All this naturally will require mandatory changes in consumption patterns and lifestyles (at least for the common folk), and the recognition that work (unlike capital) is not a production factor. Indeed, says the Group, work is not even a commodity. Moreover, only "decent" work qualifies under the sustainability paradigm. (While "decent work" is never defined, it presumably includes backbreaking sunup-to-sundown labor at subsistence farming, which under the Group’s agenda would be called "traditional" or "organic" farming and would not be replaced by modern mechanized agriculture.)

What is the source of all of this gobbledygook? Agenda 21, the centerpiece of the original Rio Earth Summit – which is being perpetuated, refined and redefined at parallel proceedings in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, while the main sustainability discussions are ongoing in Rio de Janeiro.

Agenda 21 states, for example, that "achieving the goals of environmental quality and sustainable development will require ... changes in consumption patterns." This too would be achieved under UN auspices because, as Earth Summit creator Maurice Strong has explained, the days of national sovereignty are over, and the world needs to embrace a system of wealth transfer to ensure environmental security.

In short, "sustainable development" is a system that requires a redefinition of business activity, away from the pursuit of personal profit – and of government activity, away from the pursuit of individual happiness and justice – and toward the pursuit of societal good, as defined by activists and the UN.

Simply put, as Brian Sussman points out in his new book, Eco-Tyranny, the ultimate goal of those who endorse the sustainability paradigm is to expunge "the most precious" rights expressed in the American Declaration of Independence: "that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among them are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness – that to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed."

Most of all, the UN/Maurice Strong/ Civil Society Reflection Group vision is merely the latest embodiment of Plato’s Republic. Under Plato’s thesis, an educated, elite, but benevolent and mythical, ruling class acts on the belief that its self-appointed philosopher kings have all the right answers, and do not require the Consent of the Governed. The rest of humanity must fall into lockstep or face the consequences; however the results will be exemplary.

Unfortunately, as Alexander Hamilton observed, men are not angels. Moreover, it defies experience and common sense to suppose that the elitist UN, UNEP and environmental activist community will ever display wisdom detached from ardent ideology – or benevolence toward the humans they seek to govern.
____________
Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org and www.CFACT.tv) and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death. Duggan Flanakin is director of research and international programs for CFACT.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Why Should the U.S. Government Subsidize Corn Ethanol?

Read CARE favorite Dennis Avery to find out why it should not.

JUNE 5, 2012

CORN Ethanol AND a
non-warming Earth

BY DENNIS T. AVERY

CHURCHVILLE, VA—The earth has failed to warm at all for 15
years now, and American farmers are afraid of losing the “renewable fuel”
mandate for corn ethanol—which has given them record crop prices and incomes
since 2007. So, they’re proposing a new entitlement designed to ensure that
they’ll never lose money again. Their proposed new federal farm bill would
guarantee that farmers’ incomes don’t decline—and if future farm prices rise
even more, the Feds’ guarantee would ratchet up too.

Thus, if Congress should decide the planet isn’t parboiling
itself after all, the taxpayers would be on the hook for even more farm subsidy
than today. Forget about that federal debt problem. Everyone else can pitch in
to cut government spending, but farmers shouldn’t have to. Never mind that
they’re now earning more than the average American, and have far more net worth.

Bruce Babcock at Iowa State says the new program could give
farmers $8 to $14 billion per year, compared to the $5 billion they’ve been getting
in direct subsidy payments— on top of their ethanol subsidies. And if they lose
the ethanol mandate, and crop prices fall, the government direct payments will
get even bigger.

Gasoline prices have doubled under Obama. Even so, the 10
percent ethanol that the EPA forces into our gasoline—“to save the planet” from
fossil fuels—still costs even more than the gasoline. While delivering 35
percent fewer miles per gallon. Recently, the EPA approved mixing even more ethanol into our gas—15 percent
instead of 10. Automakers warn they cannot stand behind their engine guarantees
at the higher blending rate.

Meanwhile, food prices have soared almost as much as gas
prices and for the same reason. As we divert more of our corn from cereals and
livestock feed to low-grade auto fuel, we’ve created an instant global food
shortage. The price of corn was under $2 per bushel in 2007, but has since
averaged nearer to $7. Farmers are making so much money they’ve bid up their
own land prices to record levels. Thus they raise their own costs to match
their payments.

But aren’t we saving the planet? Nope, not even that. Producing
a gallon of corn ethanol produces almost the same level of carbon in the
atmosphere as burning gasoline. Moreover, instead of temperatures soaring
upward, as the environmentalists claimed they would, the earth’s temperatures
have gone down since 2007.

The Arctic ice is returning, as the Russians predicted it
would due to the 70-year Arctic Ocean cycle. The Antarctic has been cooling
since the 1960s. The greenhouse theory said both
poles would melt as CO2 levels rose, but neither has. The Polar bears are at least 600,000 years old, which
means they’ve already been though five warm interglacials with open water at
the North Pole. The seals must bask on the beaches, instead of on the ice, and
the bears romp down to catch them anyway.

So why subsidize corn ethanol?

I grew up on a farm, and have worked with farmers all my
life. As a group, they are my heroes; but, while corn ethanol over-rewards crop
farmers, it penalizes livestock farmers. (driving up the cost of hamburgers and
chicken tenders). It’s a wash as far as farm belt votes are concerned. Corn
ethanol, unfortunately, is the worst farm program ever conceived because it
raises gas and food prices simultaneously.

And, now that we’ve discovered shale gas and oil, guess
who’ll get a royalty on every cubic foot of shale gas that gets pumped up from
below? Answer: The farmers who own the land above the gas. That reward may go
to a different set of farmers, but they’re all equally deserving, right? More
to the point, they will all bid their own land values up until they can’t make
a profit even at $7 per corn bushel.

What will the senators do to ensure their re-election then?

Dennis T. Avery, a senior
fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental
economist. He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State. He is
co-author, with S. Fred Singer,of
Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years. Readers may write to him at PO Box 202 Churchville, VA 2442; email to cgfi@hughes.net. Visit our website at www.
cgfi.org

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Meet the CARE Energy Council

Dennis T. Averyhas been quoted in publications ranging from Time and The Washington Post to The Farm Journal. His article, “What's Wrong with Global Warming?” was published in the August 1999 issue of Reader's Digest. With S. Fred Singer, Avery is the coauthor of Unstoppable Global Warming; Every 1500 Years. He travels the world as a speaker, has testified before Congress, and has appeared on most of the nation's major television networks, including a program discussing the bacterial dangers of organic foods on ABC's 20/20. Avery studied agricultural economics at Michigan State University and the University of Wisconsin. He holds awards for outstanding performance from three different government agencies and was awarded the National Intelligence Medal of Achievement in 1983. In addition to lending his expertise to CARE as a member of the Energy Counsel, Dennis Avery currently serves as Director, Center for Global Food Issues and is a Senior Fellow for the Hudson Institute is a non-partisan policy research organization dedicated to innovative research and analysis that promotes global security, prosperity, and freedom.

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Robert L. Bradley, Jr. is one of the nation’s leading experts on the history and regulation of energy and related sustainable development issues. He has presented professional testimony on energy issues to the California Energy Commission and United States Senate; his opinion-page editorials on energy policy have appeared in the New York Times and many other newspapers across the country; his energy views have been aired on National Public Radio, Voice of America, CBS Radio Network, and Armed Forces Radio, as well as local programs. Bradley is a multi-published author whose most widely read book is Energy: the Master Resource (with Richard Fulmer). His newest is Capitalism at Work: Business, Government and Energy. He holds a B.A. in economics, a masters in economics from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in political economy from International College. Bradley is a member of the International Association for Energy Economics, the American Economics Association, and the American Historical Association. He is CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research in Houston; visiting fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London; an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute; and a member of the academic review committee of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University.

Paul Driessen’scareer has included staff tenures with the United States Senate, Department of the Interior and an energy trade association. He has spoken and written frequently on energy and environmental policy, global climate change, corporate social responsibility, and on marine life associated with oil platforms off the coasts of California and Louisiana. Driessen received his BA in geology and field ecology from Lawrence University, JD from the University of Denver College of Law, and accreditation in public relations from the Public Relations Society of America. A former member of the Sierra Club and Zero Population Growth, he abandoned their cause when he recognized that the environmental movement had become intolerant in its views, inflexible in its demands, unwilling to recognize our tremendous strides in protecting the environment, and insensitive to the needs of billions of people who lack the food, electricity, safe water, healthcare and other basic necessities that we take for granted. Driessen is a senior fellow with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, nonprofit public policy institutes that focus on energy, the environment, economic development and international affairs.

Michael J. Economidesis among America's leading energy analysts who regularly appears on national TV and radio programs. As a consultant, educator, and PhD petroleum engineer, Economides has done technical and managerial work in more than 70 countries. A professor at the Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, Economides has written or co-written about 200 articles and peer-reviewed papers and 11 textbooks. Economides is the Editor-in-Chief for the Energy Tribunemagazine. He is also the co-author, with Ron Oligney, of the industry primer, The Color of Oil: The History, the Money and the Politics of the World's Biggest Business, which was published in 2000 and has since been translated into five languages. CARE is honored to include Michael Economides as a member of the Energy Counsel.

Michael R. Fox, Ph.D., is a retired nuclear scientist and university chemistry professor. He is the science and energy writer/reporter for the HawaiiReport.com. A resident of Kaneohe, Hawaii, he has nearly 40 years experience in the energy field. His interests and activities in the communications of science, energy, and the environment has led to several communications awards, hundreds of speeches, and many appearances on television and talk shows. Dr. Fox is listed by the Heartland Institute as a global warming/climate change expert. He is also the Senior Fellow for Science at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. He can be reached via email at mfox@grassrootinstitute.org. Please visit Dr. Mike Fox's blog at http://www.foxreport.org/.

Byron King is the resident energy and natural resource expert at Agora Financial, LLC. A geologist by training, he worked for the former Gulf Oil Company and has followed oil industry developments for over 30 years. Byron’s career path also took him into the U.S. Navy, both active duty and reserve. In the 1990s and 2000s Byron engaged in a vigorous private law practice. For the past five years Byron has been writing about energy and natural resource issues for an international audience. Currently, Byron writes and edits two major publications, Outstanding Investments and Energy and Scarcity Investor. Byron holds degrees from Harvard, the U.S. Naval War College and the University of Pittsburgh.

Tom Tanton is the Principal of T2 & Associates, a firm providing consulting services to the energy and technology industries. Mr. Tanton has over 35 years experience in the energy, economy, and environmental fields.